The v0.8 software malediction (and resolutions for 2019)…

Life in Software-land follows the rhythm of version updates. And big jumps in numbers is usually reflecting what happens under the hood (except for the Linux kernel sometimes): big changes, big rewrites, big decisions, all of them at the same time…

Life in Software-land follows the rhythm of version updates. And big jumps in numbers is usually reflecting what happens under the hood (except for the Linux kernel sometimes): big changes, big rewrites, big decisions, all of them at the same time. Long ago in my own Astro-Software-land, I was developing my famous macOS app: iObserve, which remained in the swamp of the beta phase for a long serie of months. (The beta phase is this period of time before the confidence on the capability of the mentionned software being actually useful reaches an « acceptable » level for the developer.)

iObserve never reached the v0.9. I had to stop development, rewrite a big part of the app, and jump right into 1.0 (I then submitted it to the Mac App Store).

v0.7.16. That’s the current version of arcsecond.io (see the changelog). Arcsecond.io was meant to become my new flagship software for the years to come. Still, I hit the v0.8 malediction. I hit it hard. I feel that a lot has to be rewritten. The good news is that the backend is solid, I’m very happy with it.

But I need to not only rewrite lots of the front-end, but actually rethink the whole shape of the webapp I intend to build. Too many things in the pipeline, but at the same time, nothing really finished. Damn.

I don’t know why it always happens around the v0.8. A kind of teenager crisis for a software. The time where you have exhausted your young energy, and start to think this isn’t the right direction, and something must change.

It’s hard to convince a developer he didn’t develop the right thing. But when this developer is yourself, and you invested a big chunk of a whole year into it, it is rough. At least, I must say I am not denying it anymore. It took quite a few months to really ask for feedback, but I did it, and the results of the votes are clear: I must continue to build new versions of iObserve…

Everything’s inside the meaning of « new versions »… This is where it is interesting to think as a product maker. What is iObserve ? An app that embedd into the same « workspace » a bunch of finely-crafted algorithms and visualisations combined with professional archival data, to let people think and prepare better their astronomical observations.

(Okay, okay! I heard it. It must work offline too.)

Fine. Let’s do that. But the success of iObserve is also the result of a few unplanned features nobody asked for. Say, I have a few in my pocket.

Resolutions for 2019. Actually, only one, which encompasses all others: focus. Really focus on the right thing, and nothing more.